Arcadia
by StryfeX Arcadia
Summary: Join Stryfe and friends in his journey to find what it truly means to be a hero, why he exists, who made him, and where he belongs in a world split down the middle.
1. Prologue

Prologue

**Big Bang?**

Yes, indeed, it is marvelous. A world of magic, a world of splendor, a world of wonders, a world of war. The land where immortal citizens go about their lives happily, and wars only occur, on average, every 1000 years, and even then, that's only between two countries. The green grasslands rolled hill after hill, and the cities sparkled as if they were, in themselves, celestial. Small towns were homely. Big cities were thriving and peaceful. Utopia at it's best.

Those weren't the only feats the mystical planet held for it's own. As well as being the very center of the universe, literally, this leads to another obvious conclusion.

It was the start of the universe.

In the beginning, there was only a future. A future of souls wishing to be free, wishing to live, wishing for all the magic Arcadia promised them. Time looped itself and finally broke into another dimension: space. Space expanded, and matter created itself forming from random elements that the souls created. This matter built up and up, and before long, a planet was there, burning away at itself and creating landmasses.

They needed light, so the souls created stars.

These souls merged to become a divine entity the Arcadians know as Ceribeld. Ceribeld continued creating the universe, while focusing on the works of Arcadia. Water was created. Soon enough, the planet was with plants. These plants needed energy, and thus, oxygen. Ceribeld created animals, but first in this order, he created the very beings to live on the planet, the Arcadians. Live grew primitively as expected from there.

After long enough, however, Ceribeld tried again to create three more civilized worlds. These worlds were Tohasu, Ab'Lyeoch, and Raikaliot. The former of them would later be called Earth by their own inhabitants. Arcadians, in connection with their god, grew angry and demanded higher privileges. Ceribeld finally gave in and blessed the Arcadians with the gift that would set them apart from any other planet at the time; magic. Then again, all of the former has simply been common religion among Arcadia, but afterwards is documented history. Magic is no lie.

This might be too big a privilege, maybe?

Indeed, as war broke out across Arcadia. Millions of people fought for sovereignty. The very world was in danger. War carried on for years, and the world grew weaker as they drew upon it's power. Soon, only one person would know of the impending doom, a Kymil Arcadia, one of the firstborn on the planet, and still the current ruler of most of the land.

He united the people to his cause, and they finally joined together and built a tower of mammoth proportions, dwarfing over the land and casting a shadow that nowadays causes, by tradition, people to cease all fighting when it is over them. The shadow represents the past mistakes. This tower was to be dubbed the Tower of Ceribeld.

However, that is not the tower's only purpose.

The tower serves to seal all dangerous magic in the realms, and punish those who attempt to defy it. A mind of it's own, however sentient.

So the Arcadians lived on, and finally agreed to unite under Lord Kymil Arcadia. Life carried on as normal for thousands upon thousands of tranquil years. Magitechnology peaked in power, and there seemed to be nothing the one nation of Arcadia could not do. However, not everyone was fond of the Magitechnology.

Atheist rebels, calling themselves Engaealeia, or more commonly today, Engaleia, finally struck out and fought against the Arcadians. This wouldn't be a threat if one of the rebel leaders was the person who had built the core of the Tower of Ceribeld. They unlocked power to them and devastated the Arcadians. However, they were still not quite enough and held a mass exodus across the ocean to the uninhabited Second Continent. Peace eventually followed. However, thousands of years later, and at a very different place, something else was happening.


	2. Reawakening

Chapter 1

**Reawakening**

It had been 50 years since that fateful day. 50 years of capsule isolation. Five decades of lifeless inexistence. His entire body felt numb. The time had come, however. He couldn't quite refute it.

Stryfe's eyes opened slowly, and the iris and pupil grew and shrunk in accordance to eachother, then moved about in all ranged of vision, and blinked a couple times, running simple systematic checks. As he did this, he wondered his existence once again. _Why…? I'm...a murderer, why have I been given a second chance…? Not God himself would have this mercy…_ As he pondered, he heard the pleasant hiss as the capsule released steam from pressure. The capsule slowly opened, and Stryfe stood up with it, every muscle and rusty joint snapping several times. He looked around, observing his new world and exercising his neck, and he walked away from his capsule.

He was in some sort of laboratory, he knew. The walls were white with unevenly-hung bulletin boards hanging, most of the material in it eaten out by rodents, no doubt. The laboratory smelled of blood and corpses, very disturbing. Every once in a while, he spotted dried blood on the wall, as well.

As he walked, he observed many capsules on the way. As he took closer looks, he noticed most of them resided by already-dead reploids, most of which looked oddly familiar to him. Several of these capsules, lined up on the walls, with broken life support tubes splattered about randomly and still-crackling computers making the capsules seem more like sarcophagi, lined up on the walls, memorials to the dead almost. Several rooms later, he saw something that profoundly caught his eyes.

A lone capsule lay in a room, most of it eaten away by some sort of malevolent radiation. Upon closer inspection, there were actually about five capsules in the room originally, but the other four had been smashed against the wall, and lay in piles of scrap metal and scattered glass. The capsule held within it a dead reploid, his face looking as a ghoul. But in the hand of the dead reploid was a black orb emitting a purple radiation. The thing's hand had been eaten away by this radiation as well, only a skeleton, but somehow still managing to support the orb that looked to be very heavy. Runes had been etched in the wall with blood, and a black barrier protected the zombie-figure. Stryfe walked up to the capsule, and felt energy pulsing through his body, and images of his dark and bloody past returned to him.

He fell to his knees suddenly, grasping his head in pain. The pulse was rhythmic, but it seemed to increase in tempo and crescendo. He fought hard to subdue those skeletons in his proverbial closet, but in vain. He closed his eyes, dedicating every motion and thought in his body to fighting off this force. The pounding, however, did not relent. It rang with the clarity of a sledgehammer pounding a rock to dust, as the force was defeating his every attempt at subduing it. The pulse stopped suddenly. Everything lay still in Stryfe's mind. He sat for many moments…not thinking…not blinking. Not moving, not breathing.

The orb took control.

His eyes shot open, pure red and letting off "flares" as the sun. He stood up, and a wave of power demolished the remains of the room further. He glared at the orb. He took one step forward, coming in contact with the barrier, and when his foot stepped down, another wave burst from him, ruining the zombie to dust. He shot forth, bursting through the barrier with relative ease and grabbed the Chaos Orb. A familiar evil power surged his totality and gave him the powers of god his inner thoughts always though he sought. Yes, he deserved to be king…

He soon grinned a sickly grin, and disappeared from sight, letting out a final wave that completely totaled that room. In a flash of light, he reappeared above the roof, and nothing happened for the longest time. The roof exploded upwards furiously from where he disappeared from a few moments later, every piece of scrap metal, however, missing him. He cackled, and lifted his hand with the orb in it, and lights from the immediate world disappeared as shadows detached from walls and floors, and flew into the orb, empowering it's purplish hazy glow and boosting Stryfe at the same time.

He pointed at the remains of the building with his other hand. He uttered a small chant, and as soon as the final syllable resounded clearly throughout the valley, shadows detached from the orb and flew in front of the finger. The shadows swirled and combined, purple and blue lines circulating the orb it eventually formed. He lifted the dark bomb above him, and flung the magical sphere at the lab, keeping his hand in its pointing position.

It settled in the lab comfortably. Things lifted and floated towards the dark bomb, first slowly, then increasingly fast. The dark bomb grew until Stryfe was satisfied, and lifted his arm. The bomb similarly flew out of the ceiling of the building, many flying things still straining to reach it. Stryfe slammed his arm down with all of his force and clenched his fist. The bomb flew into the building and released lines of bright light everywhere, before belatedly exploded with godly wrath, destroying everything in an ever-increasing black dome, and when the explosion completely engulfed the lab, it stopped, and faded from appearance. The lab did not exist anymore. Only a huge, blackened crater

He cackled again at his artwork, and focused his sights on the city below. The city of Zeta was a thriving city. The lights of the skyscrapers cut through the air of the gloomy night like a pillar of salvation. Stryfe abhorred it. Stryfe hated everything, even existence and wanted to get rid of the nuisance as quickly as possible. His armor started to glow black, and grossly, like liquid steel, morphed into a new form. It was clear by now that Stryfe had gone maverick. _Once again…how deliciously morbid._ He spread his arms, and flew down to the city, withdrawing his beam saber. The Ultimus Blade, however, refused to call it's blade. Stryfe growled, and sheathed it, regarding it a malfunction, and formed a blade of energy over his right hand, boosting downwards faster in a corkscrew.

When he had fully descended the mountain the lab was on, he leveled his flight and entered the busy, forgoing a fancy introduction or entrance, and simply slashed away at residents left and right, not having any mercy for age or status. Slash and hack, then blood and gore flew everywhere with each brutal strike. No one could offer any resistance. Zeta was largely a human city.

----

Relaxed in his own quarters, Hazard boredly read through his new emails. Tall and stately, the reploid leaned back in his chair. His hair was a neon green, spiked upwards in multiple random directions. His quarters were sparsely decorated. A circular room, the door to his right. The opposite side held an electronic bulletin board, and one wall held a dresser for humanform disguise.

A suddenly loud blare knocked him backwards from his chair, sliding across the floor. Quite cross, he just stared at the ceiling in contempt for a moment before standing up, dusting himself off and looking at the screen on the three-sided pillar in the center of the room. A big sign lay in the center of the monitor, a blinking exclamation mark in a triangle, with the words "ALERT!" above it, and "incoming message" plastered below it.

Before long, the screen turned into a large portrait of Signas, the leader of the base. Hazard muttered to himself lightly, the two just staring eachother down. Neither of them particularly got along well.

"Well, what is it?" Hazard prodded finally. Hazard winced inside as he noticed Signas fail to hide a smirk, since he had one their immature waiting game. But suddenly he fell dead serious.

"There's a mass genocide in Zeta. Go check it out, now," he said.

Hazard looked at him confused. "You're going to go send a specialist to take care of some sort of mass murderer mafia or whatever this group is?"

Signas growled and barked, "No, dammit! There's no group, it's one maverick!

Hazard blinked, but then obediently gave in and nodded, leaving the room quickly and heading towards a teleporter in the central hall of the massive Maverick Hunter Base 32.

----

Someone called for him just then. A voice in his head, resounding with the voice of the damned _…?! …Altimus?! You bastard! _Stryfe realized his mind had just then separated from his uncontrollable body at that point, and realized what was happening. He attempted to force himself to stop, but his body simply could not stop. All it offered was a grunt."Stryfe…you always did go maverick easily, didn't you? You pitiful fool," Stryfe had heard, although "You there! Stop immediately!" is what the real carrier of the voice had clearly shouted. It was a green-clad samurai-type reploid, his blade pointed at Stryfe.

"I have no clue who you are or what you want, but I won't allow you to destroy this city!" said the reploid, leveling his sword in defense. Hazard had worked these streets for years, and he had more than his share of psychotic mavericks trying to level the city to deal with. Never had any of them actually come close to succeeding, however. He simply would not stand for it.

"…leave me alone…" Stryfe's voice rasped, his mind still fighting with his body for control. He felt…dead. "If you insist on being that way, I must kill you," Hazard pointed out, his face grim, his stance still as night. All Stryfe offered was, "…hmph." Hazard charged at Stryfe then, pulling his sword back in an obvious bum rush, or so it seemed. But Hazard disappeared from his location just as Stryfe had, and reappeared behind him. Stryfe knew he was a magic user now, and wondered what had brought him about this way.

"Wolf Fang!" Hazard yelled, and fiercely brought his blade down, cutting Stryfe's back and sending a powerful and terrifying chill through it. His entire back seemed to freeze. Inside, Stryfe was glad this reploid had defeated him.

Stryfe fell, cursing yet not quite understanding how such a weak shock felled him so easily. "How could you even touch me…it makes no sense! I should be all-powerful…maybe you are truly worthy. So…what's your name?" Stryfe asked, and coughed up blood. His features morphed back to their former self and his eyes faded back into the dark blue they once were. He dispelled his magic blade, and brought one hand up to feel his hair. Matted with blood, as he had expected. Not any sort of dream, for sure.

"Hazard…Hazard Gherdan of Maverick Hunter Base 32! Surrender." Hazard replied. He was quite weirded by Stryfe's morphing, but ignored it.

"No need for that…I'm done for…today…" Stryfe laughed, and fell to the ground, unconscious.


	3. A Chance? Me?

Chapter 2

**A Chance? Me?**

The lights were dimmed in the room. Scanners swept his body, leaving green trails. Up and down, left and right, around all ways. The report came in soon to the Hunters.

Stryfe laid in the capsule, aware of his life but not being able to move. Only to think. _This seems so familiar…maybe it was all just a dream after all?_ But sadly to himself, Stryfe could only wave away that possibility. The pain was real. His chest crystal was chipped, and the slash that ran his back up was amazingly deep.

But he could hear voices, he swore. In his head, probably. Just Altimus trying to tease him more about his failure. Just all of the Projects trying to ignite his fury, possibly. Just his own voice, talking down at himself at the failure, probably. All of those at once? Definitely.

But it was not so, unfortunately. Just voices in his head that would not leave.

_Failure…_

_Get up! Show these puny mortals their folly!_

_And to think you were the link…!_

As the final voice guffawed into the distance, Stryfe did realize behind those voices were different ones. The old voices definitely seemed surreal now. The new ones spoke with amazing clarity…they seemed real.

"Hazard…prepare the ESP chamber," the first voice said. Stryfe tried to open his eyes to see who it was who was talking, but they were being quite

"I will…but first, consider this…what if we didn't have to kill him?" the second voice, "Hazard", answered.

"What?! How? He has…" Signas stopped to check a clipboard in his hands…then shrugged, "way too many different viruses!" Signas began to walk away, convinced he was right…

Hazard's voice stopped him dead. "Project Evane? What about that?" Hazard knew he had hit somewhere deep. Signas had long been proud of the project, but after it was proved to be faulty and unworking, he had lost quite a bit of pride. If he could get the project to work, he could reunite all of the hunters under him without further ridicule. He only had one quarrel…

"But…that could kill him!" he yelled back at Hazard. Project Evane was highly dangerous, and the last 3 patients under it's care died of a complete hard disk wipe.

"Oh, NOW you show sympathy," Hazard rolled his eyes, "Come on, with Evane, either all viruses are removed, or he dies. It's better chances than the ESP chamber, I know that much for sure." Hazard smirked to himself, careful not to bask too much in the glory.

"…but—" Signas started, but Hazard quickly and forcefully put a finger up to his mouth, scowling. "Either way we win. Right, Signas?"

"I suppose you're right, Hazard," Signas admitted. Inside, he was happy that Hazard still had any faith in the work, but he simply feared the consequences of it not working again far too much to admit it openly. Hazard smiled one final time, and footsteps were heard to Stryfe. Stryfe fell to sleep, convinced he would not survive whatever this oncoming project was. Finally, the eternal sleep hung over him like a welcomed pendulum.

He woke up again, much to his distaste—now, VERY much to his distaste. He heard a machine whirring, as a circle of glass was removed from the top. He heard whirring, a strange whirring. Then, his body filled with horrific pain as a large needle seemed to rip right through his chest effortlessly. Stryfe was in excruciating, unearthly pain, but didn't move. Inside he felt as if his heart was ripped from him, but he wasn't dying. Torture if there was any. He was convinced that he had died and gone to Hell. Anything's better than…it stopped. Stryfe's thoughts cut off.

Signas grunted as the machine had stopped with the virus removal bar only at 42. He thought it was all over. He prepared to rip off his badge… But then, like a godsend to his ears, the whir that sounded of the seraphim's song, and the machine started up again. It finished virus removal even faster than expected, and the glass was replaced. Turbines in the Capsule moved as the entire glass lifted off. Stryfe was quickly taken out and rushed to the repair wing by Hazard. Signas smiled.

Stryfe woke up. His subconscious enemies were dead. He almost seemed normal. Then again, it was hard to tell—he had never really been normal before. He opened his eyes slowly, glad that he could finally move again. And to Stryfe, it felt so good. It reminded him immediately of what just happened. He tried to move his arms up to inspect his gaping wound if it was still there, but he had not the energy. He then focused back to reality, and yelped at his careless mistake. He stood face to face with an EXTREMELY bright light over him, and quickly closed his eyes again shut again. He heard a chuckle from beside him, and lolled his head over to open an eye, let focus, and look upon his addresser.

"That light is epsilon energy, you shouldn't open your eyes to it," Hazard said. "They could burn. However, don't worry, I assume you know what this does?" he asked. Stryfe shook his head. Inside his head, Hazard was grinning. He had an odd urge to teach people about the world one day. He continued, "Well, it's epsilon light. The epsilon energy takes the atomic information of anything and creates more. Your armor, and inside CPU components are back, but that diamond's going very slowly."

Stryfe mumbled something. "What's that?" Hazard asked, leaning closer, eyes narrowed by the light.

"…Nothing." Stryfe replied, and, smiling, he once again allowed himself to fall into a deep sleep. This time, however, he wasn't to be assaulted by any voices, or pains. He truly thought his life would be better now.

When Stryfe woke up the next day, he was in a new room he had definitely never seen before. He stood up and rubbed his eyes. A silly reflex, he had to think, as it seemed to only mimic humans, but reploids two got contaminates in their "vision sensors."

The room had no one in it but a central column in the center of the room and supplies draping most of the walls. He had just woken up from the last note of interest beside the opposite automatic door, a pretty nice recharging capsule. The column in the middle was three sided, and rounded, with a screen crossing it. Something blipped onto the screen suddenly, a wav file playing it seemed.

The computer voice said, "Good morning, Stryfe." Stryfe blinked, and laughed aloud to himself. _What am I here for? Do they truly expect me to stay in this dump? What a joke! _A new file. "What's on your mind?" the computer advanced.

Stryfe's laughter died down, and he chuckled out a "nothing." He reached onto his back to check for his weapon. Not there.

He frantically looked about, but soon found that it lay on a desk, newly cleaned and n

doubt fixed from any damage. He walked over and picked up the Ultimus Blade. The hilt read strange runes that Stryfe had never figured out, but glowed eerily. The runes seem to stand for something familiar, yet so distant. And it only reminded Stryfe of his obligations he had to get to. Stryfe looked out a nearby window and growled. _Altimus…_

Stryfe walked out of his chamber, and looked around. It was a long hall, lined with doors with Squad names and number of commands on top. Stryfe noticed he had been assigned to the Training squad, number of command: 13. Stryfe sighed, shrugged, and walked around a bit, determined to dig around before leaving without another word.

He eventually ran into a red-clad reploid with long hair. Stryfe laughed inside, but didn't dare out loud. He was daring, not stupid. "Hello," Stryfe said.

Zero looked at him with apathy. "Bah. You must be the new recruit." Zero chuckled, and locked his gaze with Stryfe's. "I'll enjoy destro—err…training with you." Stryfe felt like beating his down then and there, but something distracted him from his uncontrollable violence. Stryfe noticed he had a badge on one of his shoulders that read 'ZERO - Commander of Special Unit #0' but then noticed a smaller one under it that read 'Trainer of Command 13' Stryfe faked a gulp, very much pretending to be scared, and walked away. He heard Zero laughing at him. _Tool._

Later he met another reploid, but this time blue-clad and not nearly as armored. Stryfe read the badge again, smirking. 'MEGAMAN X – Commander of Elite Unit #17' "Hi there," the friendly voice of 'X' said to him, throwing him off quite a bit. "H-hi…" Stryfe replied.

_Dammit! He's breaking up my rhythm…I'll have to get him later. Of course…_

"…? Why so shy?" X asked and tilted his head. "…it's nothing!" Stryfe blurted, incredibly rude for the reploid he was talking to. X shrugged, "Whatever you say. So, where do you come from?" "…I can't quite answer that. I'm just terribly sorry," Stryfe said sarcastically and was on his way. X blinked to himself. "Whatever then," X shrugged and walked away oppositely.

He finally reached the main lobby. The walls were lined with awards the base had got from the council of Maverick Hunters, and under each award, a different teleporter Doors with the names of units over them led everywhere about the complex. He finally found the Training unit, grinned to himself, and walked right on in. _This ought to be interesting. _

When he went in, he encountered a ring of 30 more doors. _Dammit, no time for this…what was the number? _He shrugged entered 13, and sure enough, there stood Zero, saber withdrawn. "So, ready to start?" Zero grinned. Stryfe slowly got into a fighting stance, easily fooling Zero with clumsy movements.

"Good!" Zero charged him with his saber drawn, and slashed at Stryfe wide. The strength and precision were perfect; the cut doubtlessly would easily sever even a novice reploid in two. But Stryfe was no novice. Stryfe had jumped before Zero even started the attack, and was still in the air, boot brought backwards. He brought it forward and his foot smacked into Zero's face, the force of the attack sending Zero skidding and tumbling backwards like a fool.

"What's this?! …play me for a fool, will you?! No such luck!" Zero charged him again, and this time feinted a stab, spun backwards and overhead to slash downwards at Stryfe. A tricky attack, Stryfe had to admit. Stryfe again wasn't about to die. He brought his blade upwards forcefully and almost managed to push Zero's blade back on himself, but no such luck. They held in a deadlock until Stryfe quickly dipped low, snapped the blade downwards, and raised a large slash upwards, just barely dodging Zero's saber. Zero jumped backwards, and, now fully engaged in battle, stabbed downwards quickly. A subtle shift of Stryfe's saber parried, and he took a leap forward, bringing his other hand came up, leading his saber to the right, and uppercut to Zero's chin, again launching him upwards nicely. Zero landed on the floor, scrambled to his feet, and jumped, screaming a war cry. The downward slash was sidestepped this time, and Zero's throat met Stryfe's hand.

Stryfe's saber hand shot out and harmlessly disarmed Zero. However, Zero was not the only one engrossed in combat. By now, Stryfe was determined to take Zero's life, and he squeezed his throat harder, ignoring the useless swings of Zero's arms and the labored gasps. This would be the end of this fool, he thought. But something had to finally stop him. It was the voice of the people he would hesitate to kill, stopping him from doing something so stupid and so harmful to his future. He let go.

"I give up!" blasted out of Zero's mouth breathlessly as he hit the floor, blasting most air out of inside him still. Stryfe sighed, nodded and sheathed Ultimus Blade. Stryfe turned around, and winced to himself. He spoke up, "Sorry, I got carried away…" and he walked out before Zero could get another word in. Outside, he met up with a crowd of reploids. 'What's that? A new recruit beat Zero?' 'Impossible!' 'He had to have been cheating!' But then Zero walked out, holding his relatively few wounds, and yelled over the crowd, silencing them.

"No. He won fair and square." Zero addressed Stryfe formally, limping up to him though. "Stryfe, I, Zero of Special Unit #0, grant you special permission to be assigned to a unit. Stryfe, you are to report to Unit #9 within 5 hours." Zero coughed. "And…good job." Zero smiled, and fell to the ground. Stryfe walked back to his quarters.

_Well, maybe I'll hang around a little bit more. Just for the entertainment, of course. And nothing more. These pitiful fools need me._


End file.
